Information Law Possum (discontinued)

I just came across a blog post dating from my pre-blogging phase in my life (i.e. not too long ago …): The post is by Tim Armstrong (whom I sadly never met last summer), and it features a terrific (b.t.w. CC-ed) flow chart of copyright duration in the United States. Sometimes, it is fascinating how different the laws can be from country to country even in matters that appear relatively simple–such as the calculation of a date.

In Switzerland, copyright expires 70 years after the known author’s death (50 years with respect to software), respectively 70 years after publication if the author is unknown throughout that period. The duration was 50 years (according to the 1922 Copyright Act) for authors who died before January 1st, 1943. No renewal, no formalities, no dividend.

Certainly, the appropriateness of the coyright terms’ length can be disputed under both legal regimes. And certainly, a U.S. lawyer or policymaker would find the Swiss solution utterly crude. On the other hand, I strongly believe that statutes may reach levels of sophistication that entail disproportionate costs to society. Just think of all the law students who have to learn the rules and of all the practitioners who have to apply them. Yet, in my view the worst thing is the legal uncertainty for non-professionals such sophistication creates:

High school student Barney, for instance, has become a big fan of Hemingway’s short stories and wants to put the ones he likes best online to share them with his Facebook buddies. He heard about copyright and that copyright has a limited term, so he googles for more information. But alas, if Tim Armstrong’s flowchart doesn’t appear as one of the top results, it’s very likely that Barney is discouraged and abandons his plan. Or he posts the stories anyway, despite being worried about media reports of students who have to pay high sums for copyright infringement.

In either case, Barney is the victim of legal rules too complicated to be practical, and he feels bad.

Or, to say this rather pathetically: The law should cause grief only to the bad and guilty, and certainly not to those who want to obey the rules.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 9th, 2007 at 5:50 pm and is filed under copyright, law and emotion.